Plans to celebrate the Bauhaus design school’s centenary next year in the German city of Dessau have stirred up political debate, as Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, party opposes commemorating what it describes as a departure from regional traditions.
The AfD has called on city officials to resist honoring Bauhaus’ cosmopolitan approach to design, arguing that it undermines local cultural heritage.
Politicians from AfD criticize the Bauhaus movement for allegedly steering modernism in the “wrong direction” through its emphasis on austerity and minimalism, reported the German publication Central German Newspaper.
In its legislative motion in the state parliament of Saxony-Anhalt last week, the AfD denounced what it called “the uncritical glorification” of the movement, stating: “The international spread of the Bauhaus style created a porridge-like homogeneity that displaced local architectural traditions.”
Debated and firmly rejected by the parliament, the AfD’s proposal prompted outcry not only for attacking Bauhaus — a symbol of German avant-garde culture that the Nazis suppressed after taking power in 1933 — but also for what it revealed about the party’s political strategy, reported Reuters news agency.
Capitalizing on economic stagnation and exploiting cultural tensions that highlight divisions regarding national identity, the AfD this year became the first far-right party since World War II to secure victory in a German regional election.
According to Jan-Werner Mueller, a politics professor at Princeton University who studies populist far right movements, the AfD’s call to reject the Bauhaus style reflects its broader political strategy.
“Culture war is their business model and provocation is their business model,” he said.
Right-wing resistance to modern architecture and design extends beyond the AfD, with notable examples including former United States president Donald Trump’s directive to have neoclassical architecture for all new federal buildings in the US and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s traditionalist rebuilding of the center of Budapest, said Reuters.
“The AfD has recognized the importance of the cultural sphere,” said Barbara Steiner, head of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation. “Because you can use it to touch people’s hearts and emotions.”
Founded in 1919 to merge traditional craftsmanship with industrial production, the Bauhaus iconic modernist ethos inspired much post-war social-housing buildings across Germany, but their mixed popularity has allowed the AfD to position itself as a defender of traditional culture against the movement’s international style, said Stephan Ehrig, a lecturer in German from the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at Glasgow University.
“They’re creating noise, showing that they are protecting their voters, defending high art and traditional values,” Ehrig told Reuters. The AfD’s criticism of Bauhaus was deliberately provocative and designed to create division, he added.
During the Saxony-Anhalt legislative debate, Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, the AfD lawmaker behind the proposal, told the chamber: “Your worship of Bauhaus seems very fragile … if our subjecting it to a little criticism might take your precious Bauhaus away from you.”
The AfD’s attack on Bauhaus has drawn sharp criticism from other German political parties, who point out that the Nazis similarly condemned modernist movements as “degenerate art”.
“Here the AfD is showing the face of National Socialism par excellence,” Andreas Silbersack, the leader of the liberal Free Democratic Party, told Central German Newspaper.